


I suppose I shouldn't have blinked

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Times Between Us [1]
Category: Saint Seiya
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 21:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you ask Aphrodite about it -though like most people, you probably won’t- the end of the Holy War and subsequent resurection of Athena’s Saints didn’t make things easier, quite the contrary. At least when you’re dead, you don’t have grudges to hold on to or old resentment to nurse.<br/>And of course, when you’re dead, you don’t exactly run the risk of being sent two centuries in the past with your least favorite Gold Saint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I suppose I shouldn't have blinked

If anyone ever asks for Aphrodite’s opinion on the matter –not that they will, because nobody ever does- he’ll say it fucking figures that out of all the Gold Saint,  _he_  should be the one to be stuck in the past because he needed to take a piss.

 

That’s life at the Sanctuary for you: even the gnarly olive trees just in front of the Pope’s palace are Holy Relics –capitals heard every time- and the Gods forbid you blink the wrong eyelid in front of them unless you want to unleash the next psychopath with the power to potentially conquer and destroy the planet.

(It is possible that Aphrodite has spent too much time with Anchise, just like Shura said, but somehow he thinks it’s more about finally speaking his mind than having suddenly turned into a cynic. Then again, when you spend over half your time with a guy who used to go by DeathMask, you probably shouldn’t be surprised if you get a little bitter over stuff.)

Anyway, that’s, basically, the story of how Aphrodite got himself stuck two-hundred years before his time… and as if his –second- life didn’t suck enough as it is, he’s here with Shaka, to boot.

 

Sometimes Aphrodite wonders if he wouldn’t have been better off staying in Sweden and pretending he lived in the eighteenth century instead of a make-believe Ancient Greece.

 

 

“What are you thinking about, child?” The Pope asks, making him clench his teeth. Aphrodite always thought Shion and his constant attention and care were overwhelming but at least  _he_  wasn’t patronizing.

“Ground’s packed,” Aphrodite answers, voicing his thought for the sole pleasure of hearing Modern Greek for a change. “Growing the roses must be a bloody pain.”

 

 

Beside him, Aphrodite can feel Shaka’s Cosmo-energy bristle and he smirks, proud to have elicited a reaction in the most impassible of the Gold Saints. When he comes back home, that’s going to be another point for him in the little competition he keeps with Anchise… for now, it’s mostly the last time he’ll be able to feel anyone’s Cosmos until he’s back in his own years.

He might as well enjoy it.

 

 

“I manage just fine,” the current Pisces Saint says –and it’s true: his roses are beautiful.

“Yeah,” Aphrodite agrees, taking out the last shovel of dirt before putting his version of the Pisces armor in the ground, “But I’m not talking about the poisoned ones.”

 

 

Of course, he has technology to help him, too -1987 and 1787 really aren’t the same thing when it comes to gardening, but still. He’s proud of his little hobby, no matter how inappropriate some of the other Saints like to make it sound… at least  _he_  has fresh vegetables on his table on a regular basis.

And they’re better than the ones that get delivered, too.

 

 

“There,” he sighs when he’s done covering his armor and planting an olive over it, “Good and buried. I can’t believe the trees were there because of us.”

 

 

They’d be in better shape if he’d been there to take care of them, too, but what do you want. He wasn’t supposed to know he was the one who planted some two-hundred year old glorified bushes, anyway.

 

 

“Don’t forget,” the Pope starts, “Do not reveal your identity to anyone. Blend in. Bid your time. And most of all….”

“Don’t come back, yes,” Aphrodite says. “Don’t worry, we’ve seen apprentices survive the competition for an armor before.”

 

 

That’s the Sanctuary for you: the Saints are supposed to sacrifice their lives for Athena and their comrades in arms, but those who don’t make it to that rank well… Aphrodite has never seen any of them come back, or stay. He supposes they go live their lives somewhere in Greece, Athens maybe. One thing is for sure: in all his years as a Gold Saint, he’s never heard of a support system for the survivors.

 

 

“You sure you don’t want us to stay and help with the next Holy War?” Aphrodite asks again, hoping against hope that the answer will have changed. “I can make do without armor, you know.”

“We already have twelve Gold Saints,” the Pope says firmly.

 

 

There’s a beat as he turns toward Shaka, and he doesn’t need to say that traitors aren’t welcome here for Aphrodite to get the message. His smile drops, his, shoulders tense, his fingers tighten into fists.

You’d have thought he would be able to avoid that adjective here –or now, whichever he’s supposed to use- but it seems Shaka couldn’t wait to rattle him out. Frankly, it shouldn’t even surprise Aphrodite –what did he expect coming from the most stuck up of all the Golden Pricks? Sometimes he’s amazed at his own naivety.

In front of him, a man named Sisyphus of the Sagittarius Cloth frowns, looking him over, and Aphrodite raises an eyebrow. Well, maybe things in the Sanctuary haven’t changed as much as Shion thought.

To Aphrodite anyway, it feels remarkable like home.

 

Taking a deep breath through his nostrils, Aphrodite forces his fingers to unclench, his shoulders to relax, his brow to smooth itself out. He puts on his sweetest smile, the one that used to get him out of trouble with the nuns, and says:

 

 

“I hope you die in the war.”

 

 

Then, without another word, he turns his back on two gaping Gold Saints and a Pope, making his way out of the Sanctuary. If they wanted to make sure he wouldn’t miss it here, it’s a bloody success.

Behind him, Aphrodite can hear Shaka run a little on the stone stairs until they’re almost walking side by side, crossing the Pisces house without difficulty despite the field of roses still being up when they reach it. Well. That must mean they get to keep their cosmos accessible until they exit the Sanctuary.

 

Slowly, too slowly for either of their usual speed, they cross the Pisces house, Aquarius, Capricorn, Sagittarius, Scorpio, Libra, Virgo, Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Taurus and Aries, which Aphrodite is surprised to see sports a roof in this day and age. He’s careful not to notice anything else about them though, especially not in what will become his house again one day –he’d like to avoid seeing the Poisonous monk’s garish taste, thank you.

He bypasses the fire clock without so much as a glance, ignores the empty Colosseum entirely, and stops at the very edge of the Sanctuary, the very limit of his power and his life as a Gold Saint.

 

He remembers what it looked like when he came here the first time, the sun slowly rising over the white marble of the twelve temples, the stones slowly painted a pale golden shade as they crept out of the shadows. He came here during summer, and he remembers wondering if every country beside Sweden got to see the sun rise in the morning rather than sit and wait for a night that never truly comes outside of winter.

He remembers, too, that he clutched his master’s cape tighter at the sight, and he got a sneer for his troubles, as well as a laugh from one of the other apprentices, a boy from Finland who used to be good friends with Milo and Shaka before their trainings truly began and they were separated.

 

 

“It seems you haven’t forgotten your old shyness,” Shaka says, his tone quiet and neutral.

 

 

Still, the reminder stings –it stings to remember his own weakness, his own ridiculous fears. Aphrodite came to the Sanctuary at the old age of eleven and, whether they used it against him or not, nobody who was there to see it forgot how afraid he looked on his first day.

He paid for it dearly enough, but the others didn’t let it go, and neither did he.

 

 

“Eat my shorts, Patchouli,” Aphrodite says, and with a deep breath, he crosses the line out of the Sanctuary.

 

 

Instantly, his cosmos feels like it’s shrinking behind a glass panel, still there but unreachable, impossible to use even for the simplest task. With that, what protection Aphrodite had against the heat and sun disappears too, and the heat on his arms tells him he won’t finish the day unharmed –too bad sunscreen doesn’t exist yet, as something tells him he’ll wish for the stuff soon enough.

He steps forward, deciding to try and reach Athens by nightfall if he can, but stops short after a few steps when he hears someone falling on the ground.

 

Looking back, Aphrodite is faced with the bizarre image of Shaka on his knees, jeans stained with reddish brown dust, his long scarf barely saved by reflexes that translated into a fairly large graze on the Virgo’s right knee. It seems Shaka pauses for a moment, then he opens his eyes, only to close them back right away, and the reopen them in a careful squint which, Aphrodite is sure, mirrors his own.

You would have thought, as an Indian, Shaka might have at least benefitted from darker eyes, but no. Apparently the both of them will have to deal with blue eyes in a country with all the sun in the world, or close enough.

 

 

“Well,” Aphrodite mutters, “it looks like we’re in deep shit.”

 

 

Shaka frowns at the cussing, as he always does, but he doesn’t contest the overall idea and that, possibly, is the most depressing thing of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and critiques are always [welcome](http://terresdebrumestories.tumblr.com/ask) :)


End file.
